


Trials Together (Book Four): The Paradise Life

by msnoname24



Series: Trials Together [6]
Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: I'm bored of typing now, Multi, if you've got this far you've probably read my other stories so you know what's up, otherwise go read them or you'll be so lost
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-06-09 01:06:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 5,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15256044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msnoname24/pseuds/msnoname24
Summary: The fourth part of my AU where Groups A and B were never separate. The Gladers have escaped to 'paradise' but none of them believe WICKED is truly gone, and they might well be right.





	1. Chapter 1

“Up now!” Thomas struggled to place the voice as he dragged his consciousness back to the waking world. Someone pulled the blanket off him and he shivered involuntarily.

“Yet another Gathering. Now come on, Harriet’s looking for someone to yell at and I do not want to be it. You slept all of yesterday, all night and now it’s nearly lunchtime so no excuses.” When he finally got his eyes open Thomas saw that the person was Sonya, she certainly wasn’t the happiest he’d ever seen her.

“Again? After this I vote we wait a hundred years before discussing anything ever.” Teresa tried to make her hair look somewhat presentable then just gave up. No one was going to look polished so there was no point in trying.

“I second that.” Aris said, yawning for the third time in a minute. “Best go see what they want.”

Gatherings were hellish everywhere, in the Maze, in the Scorch, in WICKED, on a Berg, in Denver, and now in the place most of the Immunes were calling Paradise. They would really have to change that and figure out where they actually were on the map. Paige had had some WICKED personnel stationed here for years, but they were not exactly forthcoming, saying they needed an explanation from the Chancellor.

Thomas thought about that, the staff were being stubborn, but his group had Newt, Harriet, Minho and Rachel among others, if need be they would get the information they needed.

“Welcome to my reason for an early death.” Newt greeted far too cheerfully, Thomas noticed that his limp looked much worse than normal. But thinking about the incident in the Maze everything could be expected to be worse than normal for a while.

“I think we have all outlived our expected time on this earth.” Brenda sat perched on the windowsill. “The life expectancy nowadays is thirty if not Immune, thirty five if you are.”

“That doesn’t mean this klunk won’t give me a heart attack at forty and it still be a tragic premature death.” Newt shot back at her, then turned to Thomas and his companions. No one else seemed to have turned up yet. “You’re here, Sonya isn’t, Harriet is getting her daily fix of screaming at people, I want a new job.”

“I want a new life. One that isn’t in the aftermath of the apocalypse. Neither’s ever gonna happen.” Teresa looked around, the building was clean enough and furnished. This Safe Haven or whatever it was had been planned for a very long time.

Thomas wanted answers, but he had learnt years ago that answers were as rare as gold dust. They just had to wait and see what lurked beneath this ‘paradise’ they had been handed almost on a plate. With Paige and WICKED there had to be more, likely cameras spying on them at that moment.

“If I die young feel free to lie at my funeral, but only good lies.” Aris joked.

“I’ll tell them about the day you fell over three times trying to tie your shoelaces because you were still drunk from the night before.” Rachel said.

Thomas didn’t remember that, however he could certainly see it happening.

Twenty minutes later Harriet had rounded up every single Glader and then locked the door. She said Brenda could stay but that was it.

“Right, now to decide what we’re going to do.” Sonya began. “Because this place makes very little sense and I don’t like it.”

“There’s definitely something they aren’t telling us. Paige had the first Creators killed so that she could run more Trials, but from the looks of it she’s had this place set up since then. Why do so much to accept what the original Creators wanted in the end?” Thomas briefly explained. It made no sense, and Paige was a very logical woman who could always be counted on to make some sort of sense.

“So we came out of the frying pan and into the fire?” Jane supplied, that was about right.

“No, the fire was the Maze. Now we’re in a raging inferno of klunk.” Alejandra didn’t seem angry. Thomas was somewhat taken aback, not in a bad way, but still.

“And what can we do about it?” Minho actually waited until everyone else had quieted to stop talking, the differences to his personality after losing Miyoko were jarring. Once, Thomas remembered, he had been laughing, always happy, then WICKED had tortured him with a Griever and taken away his best friend. None of them could ever be who they were again.

“Try and act like we’re too shell-shocked to question it and keep up to our ‘overly-curious’ personalities by asking these WICKED shanks lots of questions.” Gally suggested, Thomas was very surprised by how rational he was now. Compared to the Glade it was unnerving.

“I got dragged out of bed to decide this. I will kill you all in your sleep.” Rachel threatened as he got up. Thomas made a mental note to fall asleep after her whenever they next slept.

“Good luck, I don’t sleep.” Looking at Harriet that was entirely believable. The dark circles under her eyes were blacker than Janson’s soul must have been. Thomas couldn’t remember a single time she hadn’t greatly resembled a walking zombie. At least not after their failed escape attempt years ago, when she had been only ten.

No wonder she hated everyone so much, five years with hardly any sleep would do that to most people.

“I will lock my door.” Brenda said from her corner. “But please don’t actually kill me this wasn’t my idea.”

“Yet you were complicit.” Rachel retorted, Thomas was quite sure she was joking, but others that didn’t know her well looked scared.

“That’s enough. I want something to eat now.” Aris got up and tried the door before remembering the key was in front of Harriet. “Can I leave?”

“Yes. Get out.” Harriet handed the key over to him. “Everyone remember to ask as many questions as you can and be so obnoxiously irritating about it they have to answer you. If you don’t know how to do that pretend to be Minho.”

Thomas deliberately left before he could get caught up in the resulting argument.


	2. Chapter 2

Apparently the staff here had not been expecting to have to feed hundreds, they could do it, but the farms surrounding the settlement weren’t yet producing well. So breakfast was reheated dehydrated something, and not a particularly pleasant something.

 

“What do we do today?” Teresa snapped Thomas out of his mental recitation of ‘most disgusting foods he had ever tasted’. This breakfast was in the top five.

 

“We avoid Harriet.” Thomas suggested, the girl was a fifteen year old, five foot three force of nature, and she wasn’t in the best mood. Teresa nodded. “Just try and get a feel of the place.”

 

“So we have hardly any plan at all. Sounds about right.” Teresa leant back and rested her head on Thomas’s shoulder. They hadn’t been alone since the last night before escaping to Denver, a memory that still made Thomas smile.

 

“No one’s shooting at us, yelling at us or anything similar. That’s a definite bonus, compared to the last time we had no plan.” Thomas said, the fact that that could be considered a bonus summed their lives up quite well.

 

“Hmmm, probably explains why I have nothing to do with myself.” Teresa sighed and sat back up. “What should we do, because I don’t wanna deal with weird people just yet.”

 

“You could kiss me?” Thomas proposed, it was a stupid thing to say, but seeing the sunlight fall on Teresa’s face, well he really did want to kiss her. He’d never been the greatest with words anyway.

 

“Sure, but you’ve gotta think of a way to make that sound less creepy.” She leaned forward and kissed him, despite the few times it had happened Thomas was very aware that kissing Teresa was fast becoming his absolute favourite activity.

 

They were so  _ engrossed _ in each other for the next few minutes that when Thomas heard Rachel shout ‘Hey!’ he turned around so quickly that he knocked Teresa over.

 

“Slim it, I’m not here to hurt you. Just trying to find you.” Rachel was holding some sort of folder which Thomas guessed she had stolen. Aris was with her of course and both of them looked amused at what they had caught Thomas and Teresa doing.

 

“Do you have any shame doing that?” Teresa had stood again and straightened her clothes.

 

“None at all. Now you’re gonna want to look at these, various notes and info about this place, Paige wrote some of them herself.” Aris took the folder from Rachel and removed a map, it was of the new geography of the world after the Sun Flares and a portion of Antarctica had been labelled as WICKED’s last resort. So that was where they were.

 

The other papers talked about how the place had been conceived of, a location decided and building began. It had only been known to the very highest members of WICKED and some staff sworn to secrecy then stationed there, which made it obvious that somewhere there was another Flat Trans, the one in the maintenance room hadn’t been there even a week before.

 

“How did you get this?” Thomas somewhat dreaded what reply they might give.

 

“Stole it off some guy’s desk. He’ll probably be missing it, not that I care.” Rachel continued to rifle through the papers for a moment before pulling one out. “This looks useful, it seems to be a plan for if we were actually ever sent here.”

 

She handed the sheet over to Thomas, who began to read out loud, rolling his eyes at the obscenely formal writing.

 

“To whom it may concern. In the unfortunately likely event that this ‘second chance’ for humanity must be utilised I implore you to ensure that the main Flat Trans, leading to a small WICKED installation in Washington state, remains open. This entry and exit point may be used to bring supplies and further Immunes to your Safe Zone.” He paused, looking at his friends, all just as surprised and confused as he was. “How long was the whole scenario back in the Maze planned?”

 

“A long time apparently. Keep reading.” Teresa prompted.

 

The rest of the  _ long _ letter discussed the zone’s infrastructure, water and food and electricity. None of it as interesting as the first part, about how there was a Flat Trans back to the rest of the world, and that more Immunes would be sent.

 

“We’ll have to show this to everyone else, see what they think of it.” Aris said when Thomas had finally finished reading, logistics were boring and he needed a glass of water.

 

“See who’s still alive considering that Minho and Gally were nearly in a fist fight and Harriet was definitely plotting at least one murder when we left.” Rachel glanced around, they were quite isolated in the corner of forest Teresa had chosen. Thomas hadn’t heard any shouting but that didn’t mean much.

 

Considering everything that had happened the last few days the settlement, Thomas did not know what to call it, was quite calm. He looked for one of the Gladers and because of that nearly walked into Beth.

 

“Watch where you’re going shank. What’re you looking for?” She asked.

 

“Newt.” Thomas answered, Harriet might have been the leader but if she had been deciding who to kill out of Minho and Gally Newt would be a better option. Thomas wondered how Nick and Ximena had led the Gladers, he’d never had the chance to meet either.

 

“He’s off with Sonya someplace. I think near the kitchens.”

 

Newt and Sonya were no longer near the kitchens, and it took ages to find them. Thomas was hoping he’d be able to sort out phones or something similar for the Gladers, then when you wanted someone you didn’t have to walk in circles for nearly three miles to find them.

 

“So there’s a Flat Trans somewhere that takes us back to America, they’re going to be sending us more Immunes from there and we’re somewhere in Antarctica. Good to know. I thought it’d all be over now.” Newt said, rubbing at his bad leg after Thomas had finished explaining.

 

“I don’t think it’ll be over for a long time yet, maybe not even before we’re all dead.” Sonya remarked. “We need to spread this around the rest of the Gladers. Good work.”

 

Thomas was somewhat annoyed that this was all they could find. There was something about this place he didn’t like, and he liked having to play along even less.

**A/N: Sorry for the late and short chapter, I promise to update more once I figure out a plot for this story and school finishes for the summer. If you have any plot ideas or would like to see anything feel free to share.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I am trying to figure out what to do with this story, in the meantime I will be writing oneshots in this AU. If you have any ideas please let me know and I am sorry for not updating.**


	4. Chapter 4

Thomas did not really know what to do with himself, but he needed to find something because Rachel was getting visibly bored, and Rachel's boredom was a significant risk to the health and safety of everyone in a two mile radius. Thomas was acutely aware that he was in a two foot radius of her, or within arms reach, what they often called the 'danger zone'.

He shot Teresa a pleading look, begging her to think of something and wishing for the umpteenth time that they were still telepathic, it was so much easier when you could just send your thoughts into the other person's mind.

"Ari, any ideas what we should do before Rach explodes?" Teresa inquired. She really had to do that.

"I'm not going to explode, in my sixteen years of life I've only caused two fires that were my fault." Rachel glared at them, but in a joking way. "Both of them small."

"Yet you still manage to be absolutely terrifying." Aris replied, darting out of the way before she could manage to hit him.

"It's a special skill. Now let's find something to do."

"Well I think we should go to the main building and see who we can interrogate, if there's anyone left who already hasn't been." Teresa suggested, a good enough idea. Thomas almost wanted something to explode. He knew what to do when that happened. All the WICKED staff he had seen were very harried looking, having to deal with hundreds of new arrivals as well as the group of former subjects who wanted information and didn't consider no to be an answer.

The main building was essentially a large, grey and very ugly concrete cuboid. The man at the desk had a glass of what looked like whiskey in front of him. Thomas did not blame him in the slightest.

"Oh, do whatever you want. Just leave me alone." He moaned when he saw them. "They don't pay me enough for any of this crap."

"If you say so." Rachel said, examining the signs pointing to toilets, kitchen and fire exit, one of the, read Contact with Washington Installation, obviously where the Flat Trans was. Wasn't WICKED supposed to be clever?

"I think we should go down there." Teresa started to follow the sign before anyone else could protest, meaning they had to follow her or stand there in the entryway watching the receptionist drink himself into an early grave.

No one was guarding the room, which was very surprising, despite how out of control everything was here you would assume they'd have a guard for the Flat Trans. But if they let employees drink on shift and in the open they likely didn't care about anything.

The room was empty and as grey and dismal as the rest of the place, and most of the buildings now that Thomas considered it. The Flat Trans was turned off but Thomas thought he could remember how to work one, and Teresa certainly would, Teresa remembered almost everything.

"This is it." Thomas sighed, Rachel had beat them all to the lone computer and was typing away in her usual odd way.

"My login actually works. I cannot believe this place."

"Really. They're not even trying." Thomas joked, then the realisation hit him. They still had the chips in their brains that recorded the Patterns. Teresa had only managed to disable their tracking capabilities. This place and people weren't supposed to help them, but hadn't even prevented them from walking straight into what should be the most highly guarded room there. They were still being used, observed, and manipulated even now.

"Tom. You've got your look of sudden realisation, you'd best tell us why." Teresa demanded, waving a hand to attract his attention.

Thomas was about to explain when the Flat Trans activated.

* * *

**A/N: Sorry this is short, and for the cliffhanger. Until next time I manage to think of something to write.**


	5. Chapter 5

“I didn’t do that!” Rachel sprung out of her chair and over to stand by the rest of them in one movement and a tenth of a second.

 

“You’re sure?” Thomas asked, if it had been her then there wouldn’t be much of a problem, but if it was someone on the other side. Well, he just did not want to have to deal with that right now, or ever.

 

“I was checking my emails so pretty damn sure.” She retorted.

 

Thomas wasn’t going to question why she’d be doing that.

 

“This is going to have something to do with what you just realised isn’t it.” Aris said, Thomas hadn’t considered that, but it was almost certainly correct.

 

“We can’t have a full day of peace ever can we?” Teresa sighed. “Why are we just waiting to see what this does?”

 

“Because we know it’s better to find out now than later when there’s a building on fire.” Thomas didn’t even think that was an exaggeration now.

 

“Can it hurry up then. The one before the Scorch did not take so long to turn on.” It had been five seconds and Rachel was already impatient.

 

The shimmering gray wall took shape in front of them. Thomas’s awareness that they weren’t supposed to be here and were entirely unarmed greatly increasing.

 

Nothing happened for a few seconds, Thomas really did want to just run outside, he did need to talk to Minho anyway.

 

Then, a person stepped through the wall, all Thomas could do was stare silently, open mouthed.

 

“No, no, not this again.” Aris complained, putting his head in his hands, that was an understandable reaction. So was Rachel using every swear word in both the Glader lexicon and the English language.

 

None of them had ever expected to see Chancellor Paige ever again, and would have been happy with that, but now she was stood in front of them.

**A/N: Sorry this is late and extremely short again. I have far too much summer work from school and I have to go camping with no internet for two weeks just to make my Dad happy.**


	6. Chapter 6

Thomas almost had to physically fight his desire to run from the room, and the equally strong desire to throttle the woman in front of him, rid the world of another pest like Janson.

 

“Hello, I see that you have been exploring as predicted.” Paige made it sound like they were small children, the urge to murder increased again.

 

“Don’t kill her yet.” Teresa whispered, apparently able to read Thomas’s mind. 

“What do you want with us now? Still experimenting?” She continued loudly enough for everyone to hear.

 

“Perhaps a little, but myself and what is left of WICKED fully intend to use only this last resort for humanity. We believe a Cure is still possible but it is no longer a main goal. Yourself and all the other Subjects will be full Partners from now on as promised.” The Chancellor sounded sincere but Thomas wasn’t buying it, and he knew no one else would either.

 

“Why do you think we believe anything you say any more?” Aris summed it up perfectly. “Now cut the formal ‘I’m your friend’ crap and give us some real answers.”

 

Paige seemed very put out by their reaction, but considering their last encounter Thomas could not understand why at all, but she did allow Rachel to go round up the rest of the Gladers. Unsurprisingly they started to arrive within five minutes, and Brenda was included again.

 

“Oh. So the bitch is back.” Minho spat at Paige, who looked incredibly uncomfortable trapped in a room with a group of teenagers with no one to restrain them and who were all capable of murder. Thomas knew Minho well enough to see that he blamed WICKED for Miyoko’s death.

 

“It seems so.” Rachel had taken control of the Flat Trans as soon as she returned, by disconnecting all the wires and unplugging everything. “And now we have the leader of WICKED at our collective mercy.”

 

Thomas hadn’t thought of that, but he liked the idea. They could get rid of Paige so easily right now, and what punishment would there be? It had often been said that the Elite Candidates were essentially the rulers of WICKED, and Thomas knew that he, Teresa, Rachel and Aris could assume those roles again if needed.

 

But, perhaps from naive, childish sentimentality, he didn’t want to kill Paige. They needed to dismantle her power and influence, which would take time. Killing her would make them seem volatile and unpredictable.

 

“Brenda. Did either you or Jorge ever get a vote on the WICKED council?” Thomas asked, causing everyone to look at him in surprise from having no idea what he was thinking of. Thomas and the other Elites had a vote each, and depending on who had recently caught the Flare and not let been replaced there were usually twelve council members and a majority was needed to get anything done.

 

Janson was dead and gone, and if some of the other Councillors were five votes would make a decent majority to have Paige removed from the organisation. Something Thomas was quite sure she would accept somewhat gracefully, or at least was unlikely to try to take back over after being deposed.

 

“Unfortunately no, why?” Brenda sounded confused but honest, which was good enough.

 

“Tom, you need to start talking, you’re doing that thing where you assume everyone can just read your mind.” Teresa prompted. Right, that was a good point.

 

“Well, if we can get Paige removed, which we can do with a Council majority, then we can run everything the way we want it.” Everyone was listening intently now. “I have a Council vote, so do Aris, Rachel and Teresa. You need a majority of seven but Janson’s dead, and Paige wouldn’t get a vote. We just need to know who else is still around.”

 

“I can figure that out, let me back on the computer.” Rachel shooed Newt out of the chair and despite his currently severe limp he didn’t bother her, moving to sit on a table with Sonya and Harriet.

 

“That is good Thomas.” Harriet praised, “although I’m impressed you think sixteen traumatised teenagers with no real life experience can run the most powerful international organisation the world has ever known.”

 

“I have life experience.” Brenda pointed out.

 

“Yes, but you’re the only one. No one else here remembers outside of WICKED since being six at most.” Newt retorted, and six years old only meant Teresa, by contrast Sonya had been three.

 

“We’ve got this far, and I don’t think we’re entirely without help.” A rational Gally would still take a lot of getting used to. “Would anyone else on that Council be sympathetic, any of them really like you four or seem sympathetic to all us kids?”

 

“Wright used to seem halfway decent, then again so did Paige.” Aris pointed to the woman who seemed to have half given up, watching them with an oddly disinterested but also calculating gaze. How was that even achieved?

 

“What do we do with her?” Mary said, Thomas thought that was the sixth time he had ever heard the girl’s voice.

 

“I don’t know, maybe a cupboard?” Frypan was half-joking and half-serious.

 

“No real point.” Harriet sighed. “Have you got anything Rachel?”

 

“Lichliter, McVoy and Christensen are all still around, but that seems to be it. Infection rates in staff are spiking so everyone’s locked in their rooms or offices until further notice.” Rachel read off the screen. Thomas could remember several lockdowns and they were just awful.

 

There was nothing fun about having to stay in your room for two weeks with hardly any interaction with other humans.

 

“Seven people, we have four votes. We can win this.” Teresa smiled. They certainly had a chance.

**A/N: I’m back from camping! Back to schoolwork, yay!**


	7. Chapter 7

No one could think what to do about Paige until Gally and Beth offered to watch her, which made the woman seem even more uncomfortable, likely remembering how she had personally used the two as murder weapons.

 

“So, we organise a meeting of the WICKED Council, vote Paige out of office and takeover. Then what?” Teresa asked. Thomas had admittedly not thought that far.

 

“We do what they always should have tried, contain rather than Cure. Do something about the stigma against Immunes and establish Safe Zones far away from any Infected areas. WICKED facilities would be great for that.” Rachel suggested.

 

“Theoretically great, but people have been holding out for a Cure for so long, what will they do when we tell them that’s not gonna happen?” Aris said, that would have to be considered.

 

“The world is a shucking mess, how people react to what they should have done in the first place isn’t our problem.” Newt had a point, but Thomas knew from first-hand experience that the people in charge always got blamed.

 

But they would be in control, they could at least try to fix all these mistakes.

 

“Does anyone have any sort of plan because if not can I go find some lunch?” Alejandra inquired, the girl had odd priorities.

 

“Of course we don’t. But that’s a great idea, let’s go discuss world domination over a meal.” Thomas joked, everyone agreed.

 

It wasn’t particularly simple to find palatable food, but Frypan and Jane had helped the staff with breakfast so managed to beg and steal some prepackaged mostly edible sandwiches. Mary ran back to give some to Beth and Gally, who Thomas remembered would have to be filled in later.

 

“Now, let’s discuss world domination.” Harriet said around a bite of ham and bread. “Does anyone have paper, we need to make a list.”

Sonya gave her some, and a pen.

 

“A to do list for world domination. I wish I could say this is the strangest thing I’ve ever done but it doesn’t even make the top twenty five.” Brenda quipped but no one laughed.   
  
“I can assure you this doesn’t even come close to our top fifty.” Rachel replied. “Let’s start with takeover WICKED via a Council vote we can’t lose.”

 

“Takeover WICKED with rigged democratic proceedings.” Harriet said as she wrote. “Next?”

 

“Who are we making Chancellor, is it gonna be one of you four or will you just be a committee?” Minho spoke for the first time in a long time, his current norm. Thomas briefly thought of the boy he had met when they were children, who had hugged him just to say hello. A boy who had died so many times.

 

“We’ll probably work as committee in practice, but we’ll need a figurehead. I vote Thomas because it was always him.” Teresa said, she was right. According to Rachel it was because he was the one who looked like a leader even if he was really an absolute idiot.

 

“Make Thomas Chancellor.” Harriet continued, scribbling rapidly.

 

“Find out about anything WICKED did that we don’t know about. You know all those people who got stuck in the Maze, the bodies you didn’t find we don’t know what happened to.” Aris said, causing looks of absolute shock. It was something they had tried to leave alone, but those Subjects could still be alive somewhere.

 

The suggestions continued and some disturbing facts were revealed, in the end Harriet had a very long list reading:

 

  1. Takeover WICKED with rigged democratic proceedings.
  2. Make Thomas Chancellor.
  3. Find out if any other Subjects are still alive.
  4. Banish Paige.
  5. Announce to the world that the Cure will never happen.
  6. Abandon the cities and set up new Flare Free Zones.
  7. Fix the world economy, education, healthcare, etc.
  8. Initiatives to increase Immune birthrate, and general population growth.
  9. Stop tensions between Immunes and non-Immunes.
  10. Dump all the Cranks in the ocean or something, it can take them up to five years to die in the Scorch.
  11. Set up some sort of actual world government.



 

“That sounds good, and also vaguely possible.” Sonya remarked when the list was complete, at least for the time being. “When do we start.”


	8. Chapter 8

“World domination, you wrote a to do list for world domination.”

 

Thomas had wondered how actual adults would react to their plan, incredulous laughter was not quite what he had expected.

 

“Are you going to help us or not?” Sonya said annoyed, Thomas remembered she hadn’t met these people before at all. Well she had met Jorge.

 

“We don’t have anything better to do. So might as well. I also think knowingly letting you do this without supervision of some sort could one day lead to legal repercussions and one stint in jail was more than enough.” Mark explained. Thomas marvelled at the fact that every single thing any of them said created more questions than it answered.

 

“You were in jail for six hours, spent four of them asleep and it was your own fault. I’m still never bailing you out again.” Lana glared at Mark. Thomas really wanted to know what this incident had been.

 

“Okay, now the weirdos Teresa knows are going to help us takeover the world.” Gally effectively and offensively shut down the looming argument. “What do we call you anyway?”

 

“Our names. They’re not the best but we’ve had them for a long time now.” Darnell joked.

 

“Are they real names?” Frypan asked what Thomas had wanted to.

 

“Real enough. Now where do we start on this plan?” Misty answered, Thomas remembered that Teresa once told him that whether that was the woman’s real name at all was unknown to everyone. How did you live with someone for fifteen years without finding out their name anyway?

 

“You’ve read the list, I should mention that Paige is currently under guard.” Harriet said. So that was where Alejandra had gone.

 

“Rigged democratic proceedings it is. I’ll call a Council but someone needs to give me a computer and WIFI.” Rachel replied.

 

It turned out Brenda had a laptop with accessories. How had she managed that?

 

“You were keeping that stuff where?” Beth stared and shook her head.

 

“I’m amazing.” Brenda handed it all to Rachel who started immediately.

 

“I’m gonna phrase this like they can’t back out, and considering their necks are on the line I don’t think they will.” Rachel said. Thomas quickly glanced at what she was typing and it was professional enough, although there was a definite  _ Rachel _ tone to it, as expected.

 

_ Dear WICKED Council _

 

_ Due to recent events I do not have to elaborate we will be holding a Council vote at what is left of the Alaska complex tomorrow to see if Ava Paige should continue as Chancellor and determine the future of both our organisation and what is left of the world. _

 

_ Rachel Tsai _

 

“Alaska, where we came from with the explosions?” Teresa questioned.

 

“We’ll have to check out the place anyway, and Washington’ll be a snakepit right now.” Rachel said as she sent the message.

 

“So takeover starts tomorrow.” Newt yawned, it had been a long day.

 

“Be here seven or get left behind.” Harriet instructed.

 

Thomas left the meeting with Teresa, going back to where they had slept. He hoped that Aris and Rachel would take their time, and that Rachel would not carry out her earlier murder threats.

 

“We have a plan for world domination, that we can probably make work.” Teresa said as she sat down on a mattress and pulled off her shoes and socks. “Tomorrow is either going to end well or be an absolute disaster.”

 

“Please don’t say that.” Thomas smiled. “Fate already hates us.” He sat next to her, somehow exhausted. “Let’s just sleep.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Sorry for not updating, everything I’ve been ignoring is now back to bite me. I don’t really have any ideas for where this story is going to go so I think I might just leave it here and write something new.**


End file.
